It's been my observation that many of us Christians do not have a very God-centered view of daily devotions. What I mean is this: we come to the Bible on our own terms instead of on God's. We seek to use the Bible instead of allowing it to change us. We seek to manipulate God into liking us because we have daily quiet times instead of desiring to know Him more through them. We read into the Bible our pre-conceived theology instead of allowing it to shape what we believe.In light of this I thought it might be beneficial to write a multiple-part series on how to have God-centered daily devotions.
PRINCIPLE #1 - Read straight through books of the Bible.
The Bible was not meant to be read straight through from cover to cover like a novel. However most of the individual books within the Bible were intended to be read from beginning to end (you could debate this for the book of Psalms).
If we want to grasp the intended message of God and the biblical authors we can't do as many Christians do and simply take a different verse or chapter from different books each day for our devotions. This leads to taking sections or verses out of context from their intended meaning.
Practically this means don't let devotional books such as My Utmost for His Highest or others that give a "verse for the day" be your lone source of time in Scripture. These are good for supplemental devotional time but won't give your soul the sustenance it needs to grow and thrive. Only consistent time reading through Scripture the way it was intended can do that. And don't flip open to a different part of Scripture each day. Stay consistent. Read straight through books of the Bible. Read straight through the NT and then straight through the OT if you can. The Bible was not meant to be a magical Ouija board where you close your eyes, drop it open to whatever page it falls to, and it magically gives you the verse God wanted you to see for that day. God has the power to do those things, but it's not how He intended His word to be studied by His people.
So try to make it a goal to sit down each day and read a couple chapters consecutively from Matthew or Genesis or Romans or 1 Samuel. This will help you to come to Scripture on God's terms and not on your own... to read it the way God intended it to be read rather than to use it for your own purposes.
to be continued...
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